Bismillaah ir Rahmaan ir Rahiim
In the name of Allah, The Merciful, The Compassionate
SUFISM AND THE PARADOX OF SELF
By Fleur Nassery Bonnin
THE PATH OF SUFISM
Allah (swt) uses many different ways of awakening people
from the sleep of this world and attracting them to Him. Upon
awakening, people begin searching and become travellers of
the path (salek). As they start their journey towards
God, their thoughts and feelings shift. They begin to behave
and live differently in varying degrees. This change is necessary
for a person to be considered a traveller of the path. Why
the change? They are now beginning to distinguish between
the ‘reality’ that they have always known and
the Reality that truly is. They start to realise and understand
that the purpose of this life’s journey is not what
they had thought and that the journey of life, in fact, encompasses
greater depth and meaning than they had ever imagined. The
innermost part of their self responds strongly to this realisation
and the outer mechanics of the person therefore shifts.
There are various spiritual paths that attract people but,
sooner or later, all these little roads lead to one main road
and unless one travels the distance to this grand highway,
one will not get far. To travel on this highway, one must
disable and break down the self, removing the self (nafs)
from its position of king and ruler, and making it the slave.
While the terms used may differ, all the mystical paths are
in agreement on this fundamental aspect. In Buddhism, they
speak of suffering and killing the ego; in Sufism, they speak
of servanthood of the nafs to Allah (swt). This also marks
the separation between the real traveller and the pseudo traveller.
The vast treasury of Sufi teaching, poetry and literature,
points out this fundamental and uncompromising stage of spiritual
unfoldment. In Sufism particularly, this highway is well sign-posted
and can be followed if sincerity governs the heart. This road
is marked with many teachers and once one surrenders himself
to be taught and becomes a salek, he or she is well on the
road to God discovery. Guided by his teacher (murshid),
the salek follows and obeys the murshid, whose job is to prevent
the salek from falling into the trap of its self (nafs).
The self uses every trick and manipulation to get the traveller
off the road that will ultimately lead to the self’s
demise. Its tools include man’s mind, emotions and belief
systems - a dangerous and powerful array of weaponry. One
must be most aware and equipped to defy the attempts of the
nafs.
THE PARADOX OF SELF
The teachings tell us two seemingly contradictory things
about the self. In the first instance, the self is the most
dangerous trap in the path to God. It is the biggest obstacle,
it is vile, it is beastly. It is only interested in the fulfilment
of its animalistic and selfish desires. It is a veil to the
Truth and Reality. It makes you believe things that are not
true and makes you like things that are not good for you.
It is difficult to recognise this because you have always
lived this way and you are surrounded by people who live similarly.
So, pay attention! These are the characteristics of Satan
as described in the Qur’an. For example in Surah 15:39-40,
Satan says:
“O my sustainer! Since Thou hast thwarted me, I
shall indeed make (all that is evil) on earth seem goodly
to them, and shall most certainly beguile them into grievous
error – save such of them as are truly Thy servants.”
At the same time, Sufism points to the other aspect of self,
the high station of the self. Man is created in the image
of God and is the height of creation. God created other creations
for the sake of human beings and made man the master over
other creations. He created everything for man and created
man for Himself. He blew His spirit into man and gave man
the ability to rise above angels. He did all of this so that
man could know Him, worship Him and love Him.
There appears to be a paradox here and one may get confused
or fall into the trap of taking himself to be the higher self
without wanting to acknowledge the lower, animal self. It
is important to recognise both aspects of self, the satan
and the angel, the shadow and the light, the ignorance and
the consciousness. Within man are both potentialities. In
the heart of man is the treasure of knowing his Creator, but
he is sent to this world of distraction through attraction
to temporal pleasure. The part of the self that is in absolute
darkness becomes consumed with this temporal pleasure and
material engagement. Becoming totally conscious of self and
preoccupied with the material world, man does not pause to
look inside himself to find the treasure within his heart.
The treasure of knowing his Creator marks the highest aspect
of the self. This is the Self that is God-conscious, rather
than self-conscious.
The purpose of man’s creation is to become close to
God. In order to reach this destination of knowing his Creator,
the traveller must travel a road of war with his ego until
it is brought into submission. This is only possible by bringing
the ego self to a place of servanthood. But modern man’s
ego or self has a big problem with the idea of servanthood.
The irony is that man is in the grip of his demanding self
and a slave to the material world, but he is not aware of
it. Modern society promotes ‘individuality’, which
in reality is ‘slavery’ to materiality, yet ignores
and/or shuns servanthood to God, which is the true purpose
of creation. It is only through servanthood to God that man
can actually be freed from servanthood to the material life.
One cannot be a servant of God and a servant to oneself at
the same time. All the Prophets have pointed this out to us.
Prophet Jesus (pbuh) says in the Gospel
of Thomas, Verse 47:
“A person cannot mount two horses or bend two bows,
and a servant cannot serve two masters.”
Moulana Rumi, from his treasure box of Masnavi, brings out
pearls and forms verses urging man to recognise both aspects
of the self. He explains how this ‘donkey’ (or
self) perpetually runs to the pasture for grazing and self-satisfaction,
forcing you to continually run after him, unless you learn
to break him in, mount him, and become his master. It is then
that the ‘donkey’ becomes your transcended Self,
the vehicle to take you to the Beloved.
“Sell the donkey ears (these worldly ears) and buy
another ear
since the worldly ears
cannot receive secret words of God”
and
“The way to become a king is through servanthood
when you submit to be a
slave of the Beloved, you become the beloved”
Moulana Rumi
The ego self uses everything for its own benefit, including
truth, justice, fairness and even God. It even worships God
to get something in return. This is why the self needs to be
dismantled.
“A true believer and an infidel both say ‘God’
but there is a difference between the two
The beggar (infidel) says ‘God’ for the sake
of bread
the true believer says
‘God’ in his very soul”
Moulana Rumi
In Sufism, dismantling and fighting the ego self is an essential
part of the work. The degree of a man’s success depends
on the degree of the man’s sincerity of effort.
We are being warned that the most important work of the salek
is the difficult task of subduing the authority of the nafs,
as it is our most dangerous enemy. One metaphor used to describe
how one must deal with the self is:
Imprisoning it - killing it - burning it - and scattering
its ashes.
Servanthood imprisons the self. Abstaining from passion kills
it. Love of God burns it. Gnosis scatters the ashes of the
self, eliminating all of its traces.
“Until one hair strand of your being you, remains
the business of vanity
and self-praise, remains
You said, ‘I broke the idol of my mind, therefore
I am free’
this idol ‘that you
are free from your mind’, still remains”
Moulana Rumi
The make up of the ego self is in stark contrast to serenity
and peace, because peace and serenity are states that can
only be experienced as a result of closeness to God (taqarob).
The self requires constant movement and turmoil. If events
and problems in life are not enough to keep the system going,
it will create more. Therefore, one is in a constant state
of busyness of the mind, of inner chatter, of existing in
the past or future and in turmoil in order not to be present.
All of these are constructs of the personality to fog and
blur one’s vision to what lies beneath - like waves
on the surface of the ocean preventing one from seeing the
depth of the water. One exists in this fallacy of distraction
until one day, by the Grace of God, one wakes up just a little
and realises the untruth of life’s predicament. When
one makes the effort to quieten the mind and to negate the
demands of the nafs then, little by little, one purifies the
state of the self. Only when the self is transmuted is one
able to experience serenity and peace and it is in that station
that one can hear with the inner ear, the voice of his Creator.
Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) says:
“If you did not talk too much and if there were
no turmoil in your heart, you could see what I see and hear
what I hear.”
The paradox of self is that man has two aspects of the self
in him, one hidden and one apparent. He needs to break away
from the one to get to the other. If he spends his life busy
with the little self, which is considered his lowest level
of being, then that will be his predicament in this life and
in the hereafter. It is man’s task in this life to break
away from his habitual behaviour and his immediate gratification
in order to become worthy of what he has been created for.
If he breaks through the illusion of identifying with his
self as the only reality and if he gets to know his self from
his Self, then he moves ahead on the highway towards the Beloved.
Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) says:
“He who knows his self knows his Lord.”
Prophet Jesus (pbuh) says:
“One who knows all, but is lacking in oneself, is
utterly lacking.”
He also says:
“Whoever has found oneself, for that person the
world is not worthy.”
“You know the price of every merchandise,
but you are ignorant of
knowing the value of your self”
Moulana Rumi
In the Qur’an, this theme has been addressed many times by
the Creator. For instance in Surah Al Asr, Allah (swt)
says:
“Verily man is in loss (in his trades). Except the
ones who attain to faith and do good work.”
Imam Ali (a.s.) says:
“It is a losing trade if you believe that this world
is worthy of you.”
In all the above quotes, the message is that when man sells
his self to the goods of this life, he is a loser because
what he is selling is far more precious than what he is buying.
The irony is that one does not know his own value and is
not in touch with his Self. All he knows is the little self.
Yet at the same time, there is no shortage of signs, teachings,
prophets, saints and teachers from Allah (swt), to point out
the truth, and the way to it.
Moulana Rumi remarks in the story of Moses and Pharaoh:
“Don’t look at that staff (Moses’ staff)
and think of it as a piece of wood
look at what is in it that
could part the sea of Ahmar”
In a similar teaching, Prophet Jesus (pbuh)
says:
“If two make peace with each other in a single house,
they will say to the mountain, ‘Move from here,’
and it will move.”
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